It’s been a while since I last posted. Partly this is because I have been
frightfully busy at work, but mainly because I have been frightfully busy at
home.
Whenever I return from La Bourboule I embark on a massive
de-cluttering orgy. One year it was the
attic, then the cupboards, after that the kitchen. When I am in La Bourboule I have a large
spacious practically empty apartment.
There is practically no clutter.
Just a bed, a table, a few chairs, a cupboard for dishes, a wardrobe for
clothes – and that’s it. No books, no
knickknacks, no pictures, no carpets – no dusting! It is so restful for the mind, and so calming
to the nerves. And so great not to have
to dust! I am at heart a
minimalist. Unfortunately I am also at
heart a Victorian pack rat. An uneasy
combination! Anyway, whenever I return
from La Bourboule the minimalist is in the ascendancy, and my mind craves
simplicity. So I de-clutter with a
vengeance until the feeling wears off.
But this year I took things much further – my health was at stake!
For a year or two I had noticed an occasional tendency for
the inside of my nose to swell, with the result that breathing through it was
difficult, especially at night when I was in a horizontal position. This was not an asthma issue – breathing
through the mouth was fine. OK, so I
have a narrow nose, but this was a new problem for me. I bought a little anti-snoring device that
kept my nostrils open at night which I used when necessary and thought no more
about it. But within 24 hours of
arriving in La Bourboule the problem disappeared. And within 24 hours of leaving La Bourboule
it re-appeared.
Putting on my detective hat I analysed the situation. Why did I not have this problem in the
past? What had changed? And why was this not an issue in La
Bourboule? We had just had two very cold
winters. I had secondary double-glazed
all the windows. I.e. I had not been
keeping the windows open a lot these last two winters. Which reduced ventilation. Which lead to a build-up of indoor pollution,
dust particles, etc. Which resulted in
some sort of allergic reaction in my nose.
That was my theory.
Extensive googling confirmed my hypothesis that asthma and
allergies increased in houses with double glazing and insulation. Doggone it, I had been so proud of my
insulated house, and now I have to face the fact that I had basically sealed
myself into an allergy producing chemical dustbowl cum hellhole! Dash dash dash!!!!
What’s a woman to do?
The obvious thing would be to sell up and move to La Bourboule, but the
market for university fundraisers is decidedly limited there, so I would be
very poor, if disgustingly healthy.
Alternatively I could try and clean up the house. That’s what I have been doing ever since I
came back from La Bourboule.
Firstly, I surveyed my possessions. They were manifold and gathered dust
easily. To clean the house was very
laborious, partly because of my dust-catching possessions, partly because I
have so much stuff that vacuuming requires an awful lot of moving of furniture. As a result I dusted & hovered less often
than was desirable (from an allergy point of view). Therefore I decided to first thin out my
possessions.
I donated 36 large shopping bags full of books to the Oxfam
bookshop; I even filled out a gift aid declaration, I expect they will make a
small fortune. Then I summoned my
trusted antiques dealer and sold him the following: four bookcases, two large arm chairs, two
tables, a mirror, a stepladder, a magazine rack, a laundry rack, and a few
other bits and pieces. This required
quite a lot of work – going through one’s books and deciding which ones to
throw out requires both time and moral fibre, as does finding places for all
the knickknacks that had rested on the tables and bookcases I had sold. I got rid of most of them.
The biggest struggle was a certain armchair, which I loved fiercely
despite being totally useless and consistently in the way. In the end I bribed myself. I am technically on a scarf-ban (I have so
many that I decided to stop buying them for a while), but for this noble
purpose allowed myself an exception. So
I swapped the chair for Rythmes du Monde.
Half of me feels pathetic for needing to be bribed to let go of the
chair, half of me is grateful there is something I can be bribed with – without
my lust for scarves I would still be stuck with that chair! It was touch and go – five minutes before the
dealer arrived I almost decided to keep it, but told myself sternly that I had
bought the scarf so could not back out of the deal now.
Having de-cluttered the house of furniture, I turned my
attention to the garden, and cut it back savagely, much to the disgust of the
neighbourhood birds. After a weekend of
hard work I returned to the house for some more de-cluttering. I had become a fanatic! One morning I woke up at 5, decided to get up
to make a cup of tea, and while my tea was getting cold I sorted through my CD
and DVD collection and discarded half of them.
Whereas I used to spend my Saturdays haunting thrift-stores
I now wandered through the Little House, casting a jaundiced eye over my
possessions, thinking, do I want to dust this for another 50 years? And I continued to fill large shopping bags
with things.
Last weekend my de-cluttering reached a major peak: first I
sorted out the Mouserleum (conservatory), threw out all sorts of ‘this will
come in handy some day’ bits & bobs, and made dozens of spiders
homeless. Then I had a quick dinner, and
decided to watch a movie. On route to my
Nostalgia Studio, where I watch movies, I passed the bedroom.
The top of the curtains were very dusty, and the bed-hangings
impossible to vacuum properly. Moths had
been having orgies in them for years. I
hated to look under the bed, because although I did not store anything there,
reaching the dust in its outer reaches was tricky. Something had to be done. It was 20:30
hours Saturday night. I decided to move
all the furniture around, the four poster bed, the six foot long wardrobe, the
tall linen cupboard. God gave me
strength. I finished at 23:25 hours, and sank into my bed utterly
exhausted. But the job was done.
Did I mention that my vacuum cleaner is crap? There are few things as soul destroying as
spending two hours hoovering the house, putting the hoover away again, and
discovering that the carpet is still covered in dust and fluff. I had enough!
I bought a Dyson. Even though I
bought a reconditioned one, one third off regular price, it was still
expensive. But I did not care. I decided to pay for it out of my scarf
budget. I had turned from being a scarf
addict to being a Putzteufel (cleaning fiend).
I had recently acquired some humidity meters, and discovered
that the humidity in the Little House was unhealthily high, so I bought a
dehumidifier. Every 12 hours I collected
2 litres of
water. This went on for weeks. Currently the collection rate has slowed to
about 1 litre
every 12 hours.
Sunday morning, after the Great Bedroom Shift Around, I
longed for nothing but rest. I bought
two (!) croissants, the Observer, and barricaded the front door. Peace at last! But alas, after a mere half an hour of
reading my urge to clean & de-clutter arose again. Sighing deeply I put the paper aside and set
to. I dusted and vacuum cleaned for
about six hours, I wiped the floors and washed the top of wardrobes, I dusted
picture frames and polished the stairs.
Clearly I had gone quite mad.
Where will it all end?
Will I wake up on bare boards one day, having de-cluttered my bed? Will I limit the number of my books to three,
like Leberecht Huehnchen – one Bible, one cookbook, and Don Quijote? My journey has only just begun.
Anyway, I hope all this frantic de-cluttering and cleaning
will appease my mucus membranes!
